Big Kitchens

Just north of Chicago, the heat is on at one of America's biggest and busiest steak and seafood joints. Bob Chinn's Crab House cooks up 900 king crabs and 1500 steaks every week, feeding over 12,000 guests. Since it opened in 1982, Bob Chinn's has exploded into a 700-seat crab castle.

In San Antonio, just a few miles from The Alamo, Big Lou's pizza and pasta restaurant proves everything really is bigger in Texas. Serving burgers fifteen times bigger than a Big Mac and a pizza five feet wide, demand for their super-sized food is just as BIG. Opened in 2000 by Brian Lujan, his five table business has grown to seat more than a thousand. Each night his kitchen staff cooks hundreds of pizzas in all shapes and sizes--going through nearly a ton of dough and mozzarella in the process. Each part of the Big Lou's Big kitchen runs like a giant well-oiled machine. With enormous pizzas going out every 20 seconds there is no time to catch their breath.

Cheesecake fans head to Brooklyn by the thousands for the biggest Cheesecake player in town--the mighty Juniors Restaurant and Cheesecake Factory. Every month their immense kitchen churns out 150,000 cheesecakes and 25 tons of pastrami to feed over 90,000 customers! Opened in 1950 by Harry Rosen, it's fallen to his grandson, Alan, to keep Junior's massive operation running. The secret Junior's cheesecake recipe has been handed down the generations and now each week, Alan needs enough cream cheese to fill 20 swimming pools! As well as cheesecake, Junior's has over 250 other classic New York dishes on their menu--from their famous Matzah Ball Soup, to their Cheese Blintzes. Today is the busiest day of the week--Alan's team must juggle hundreds of hungry guests and the constant flow of delivery trucks needed to keep them fed. Will this cheesecake castle survive the onslaught, or will it collapse under the weight of the invading hoards?

In the Caribbean, one of the largest floating kitchens is dishing up fine dining for over three and a half thousand cruise ship passengers. The tireless staff on the Regal Princess work across 20 huge galleys to provide round-the-clock food that is just as stunning as the holidaymakers' tropical surroundings. Launched in 2014, the 1000ft long Regal Princess is a true leviathan. And with 3,700 passengers and over 1,300 crew to feed, it has an equally giant cooking operation. Every week these kitchens get through a whopping 140 tons of food. We join the ship on a seven day tour of the Eastern Caribbean. With just ten hours to stock up 15 massive provision rooms, the kitchen team can't miss a single item. As well as cooking for guests in 16 different bars and restaurants spread over 17 decks, this week the team also has to prepare a monster beach barbecue in the Bahamas.

The Royal Nawaab in Manchester, UK is one of the biggest curry houses in Britain. In 2002, owner Mahboob Hussain converted an art deco cinema into two banquet halls and a massive 45 ft. long buffet. In a town where people spend on average $48,000 in their lifetime on curry, the team at the Nawaab must never slip up to maintain its' reputation as the king of spice.

The spiciest and biggest New Mexican restaurant in America, El Pinto is all about the chili. Based in Albuquerque, El Pinto's massive kitchen can feed up to three thousand people a night. Originally opened in 1962, "Chile Twins" John and Jim Thomas took over the family business in 1990 and have spent decades perfecting their family restaurant.

One of the biggest restaurants in Las Vegas, Brooklyn Bowl, cooks up three thousand plates a night. Bowling alley, music venue and king-sized restaurant rolled into one, it creates award-winning recipes, attracting customers from all across the world.

The biggest facility of its kind anywhere in the World, Emirates Airline Catering facility is the size of ten American football fields, and in its eight year history has served over 265 million meals! Based in the heart of Dubai, like the airport itself, the Emirates Catering Facility runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

In the heart of the Las Vegas strip, the award-winning MGM Bellagio houses one of the biggest buffets in the world, feeding a full house of 4,000 hungry diners.

In Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Falcon Inn is one of the US Army's largest dining facilities; this monster cafeteria is run with military precision. Today, the team is dealing with a breakfast crush, as soldiers cram into the dining facility.

Just outside Austin, Texas, is a drive-thru dishing out doughy delights on an extreme scale; at Round Rock Donuts; guests are drawn from far and wide for the world-famous 14-inch orange glazed titan of the donut world, the Texan.

In New Orleans, it's Mardi Gras; Commander's Palace, one of the oldest and most iconic restaurants in America, has expanded into a 400-seat gourmet castle renowned for its exquisite Southern seafood cuisine and fine dining.

Today is the first day of the new trucking season, and the ten-strong kitchen crew are bracing themselves for the busiest day of the year so far. General Manager Rick is in charge of powering out four hundred breakfasts, including their gargantuan trademark breakfast, the Hungry Man. Meanwhile butcher Bobby has over 120lbs of pork to hack through to make the restaurants most popular plate of meat, their signature char-broiled pork chops, and shift manager Chris has to keep up with the demand for her grandfather's recipe meat loaf. But catastrophe strikes when one of the most important cookers in the kitchen goes down, and Iowa 80's Mr. Fix it Jake has his hands full with trying to reignite it and juggle an emergency run to the suppliers for five hundred extra eggs.